


the next great american dynasty

by tobeconvincedoflove



Series: red white and royal blue au [1]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Gen, Hospitals, Illnesses, Panic Attacks, Red White and Royal Blue AU, adam is adopted, adam is not happy about this, bc setting up for red white and royal blue, blue is a year older than adam bc i said so, calla and maura are married and calla is running for president, calla and maura are the best moms ever, it's not graphic but there is some vomiting, it's not like super explicit but adam is anxious in this so, tags will be updated when i post the second chapter, the prequel, yolo we're rewriting 2016 election
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:49:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25612348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tobeconvincedoflove/pseuds/tobeconvincedoflove
Summary: Adam should have known something terrible was going to happen today.First problem: Calla is home for dinner on a random Wednesday in the middle of a Senate session. When Senate is in session, she’s usually not home until nine or ten. Second problem: Adam and Blue got to pick a place to order take-out from. Maura and Calla may be the lesbian power couple of many, many college girls’ dreams, but they do notjustorder take-out on a Wednesday when there could be a cooked meal at home. Third problem: he’s not in trouble for being up all night pacing the house and raiding the ice machine because he was too nervous about his latin test to sleep.What he didn't know was that Calla was going to announce she was running for president of the fucking country.
Relationships: Adam Parrish & Blue Sargent, Adam Parrish & Maura Sargent, Calla Lily Johnson & Adam Parrish, Calla Lily Johnson/Maura Sargent
Series: red white and royal blue au [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1856503
Comments: 20
Kudos: 62





	1. i. iowa

**Author's Note:**

> hello welcome to the next great effort that I have!
> 
> this one is gonna focus on the first family, but ronan will come into play once calla is president (bc like half irish, catholic, and gay being three strikes and you're out in the royal family is too good of an opp to pass off oop)
> 
> this is also the less interesting chapter i am so sorry

Adam should have known something terrible was going to happen today. 

First problem: Calla is home for dinner on a random Wednesday in the middle of a Senate session. When Senate is in session, she’s usually not home until nine or ten. Second problem: Adam and Blue got to pick a place to order take-out from. Maura and Calla may be the lesbian power couple of many, many college girls’ dreams, but they do not _just_ order take-out on a Wednesday when there could be a cooked meal at home. Third problem: he’s not in trouble for being up all night pacing the house and raiding the ice machine because he was too nervous about his latin test to sleep. 

“Whoah. You got samosas?” Blue says, as she sets the table. “What’s the occasion? Did I get into that pre-college program and not know it?” 

“You wish,” Adam says, continues pulling stuff out of the bag. Samosas, garlic naan, and Blue got a mango lassi? 

Something isn’t right. They never let Blue order that, not unless she’s done something to really, really deserve it. 

“No occasion,” Calla says, pulling plates out of the cupboard. It sounds too casual. 

But he doesn’t press it—if he lets them know that he knows too early, it will ruin everything. 

It has to be something big. It has to be big because she waits until they’re all basically done, but Adam has no idea what it could be. Her senate term isn’t up for a few years yet, and Blue doesn’t apply to college until next year. Maura has been working from home at the same nonprofit for years. 

“So, Maura and I would like to have a family discussion,” Calla says, and Adam feels his fingers go numb. It’s May, of 2015, and he knows he knows he knows what this is going to be. 

There’s only one explanation that lines up with the timing. 

Calla and Adam lock eyes, and he can see it. She’s so excited, but she’s nervous. Calla Sargent-Johnson is very rarely nervous. 

“I want to run for president.” Adam feels the samosa in his stomach turn to a rock. 

Here’s the problem. It’s not that he doesn’t want her to do it—he has supported her through her jump from house to senate, and every single re-election campaign in between. He was technically there for her first house campaign too, but he had just been fostered and honestly had no idea what the hell Calla’s actual job was at that point. It’s that those were always about her career, her policies, her goals, her positions, her beliefs. 

When America elects a president, they’re not just electing a president. They’re electing a first family. 

Adam knows who they’re going to focus on. It’s not Blue—for as much as they’ll enjoy picking apart her blog of think pieces about the environment and how she dresses and her hair, she’s boring. It’s not Maura—she runs a few non-profits that are nonabrasive even to the post-tea party republican party. 

Adam is the adopted son of an interracial lesbian couple. He has never once talked to the press of his own volition, has always been the quieter, mysterious son. They know nothing about what he likes to read, watch, eat, or discuss. Blue has given them morsels throughout the years, just enough to keep them at bay, keep the media satiated. Adam has given them nothing, his own fear and anxiety holding him too tightly by the throat to get any words out. They are going to come after him like a pack of starving wolves. 

“No,” is what Adam says. He stands up, even though his hands and feet and throat feel numb. “You’re not.” 

He doesn’t run away. He calmly makes his way to the sink, rinses his plate like he’s supposed to, puts it in the dishwasher. 

“Adam, let’s sit down and discuss this as a family,” Maura says. “Nothing is set in stone yet.” 

“No.” Adam’s voice is calm. “I have homework I need to do.” His voice sounds disjointed, mechanical. 

He fills up his water bottle with ice and water, and he heads up the stairs. He has no idea what Calla is thinking, why she thinks that this will do anything but drag them all through the mud. Virginia being okay with Calla and them is one thing, when Calla fights so hard for healthcare and education reform and worker’s rights and so many other things. The country isn’t going to care. 

“I’ll give him some time to cool off,” Calla says, quietly. “Let him think some more. Then I’ll talk to him.” 

“What are your initial reactions?” Maura asks Blue. She’s hoping it’s not the same as Adam, because then Calla’s dream is dead on arrival. They’ve been talking about this for weeks, early in the morning and late at night, about how Calla can change this country for the better. How they all can. 

“It’s not about me,” Blue says. “Realistically speaking, I would be eighteen before the election. Adam would only spend a few months in the white house before college. This is what you’ve always wanted, Mom.” 

“So you’re on board?” Calla asks. She looks like she could cry.

“Yeah, I am. You’re better than any of the other choices,” Blue says. “But I do get why Adam’s freaking out.” 

It has always been harder for Adam, she knows. It’s harder for him to get through events, to be in spaces where he doesn’t know anyone and doesn’t like anyone, to just give away harmless pieces of information about himself for free. It weighs on him more. 

“Henry has got to be shitting bricks,” Blue says, as she hugs Calla. Calla just laughs. Blue has known Calla’s longtime chief of staff since she was little, and she’s made a childhood out of selectively driving him crazy. 

“He’s taking it better than I thought,” is what Calla says. “Help Maura clean up from dinner and then I believe we need to talk about finalizing your college list.” 

“Boo,” Blue says. “Now that you’re running for president, I’m throwing my old list out of the window. I have to ride the hype train as far as it’ll take me.” 

“I haven’t announced anything,” Calla reminds Blue. “Now help your mom please.”

:: ::

“Can I come in, peanut?” Calla knocks on Adam’s door, exactly at nine thirty p.m. It’s when he’s supposed to be done with work, is supposed to be shutting down to go through his nighttime routine and his meditation exercises and pray that his brain shuts off enough to sleep.

“Sounds like you already are,” Adam says, slips off his giant headphones. “I’m going to be working late tonight. AP tests are coming up, and I’m behind in my studying.” 

“You should still go through your normal routine. And you need to be taking your meds at the same time anyway,” Calla says. 

“That’s not what you’re here to talk about,” Adam says. “Or if it is, it shouldn’t be what you’re leading with.” He’s curt, which means he’s tired. 

“You were up all last night. You need to get some rest, honey,” Calla says, and Adam lets out a sigh. 

“Okay. Can we cut to the chase?” This is probably the Red Bull he had slammed with a caffeine pill about two hours ago talking, but Adam is honestly too tired to give a fuck about being polite. “I think you’re making a mistake.”

“I appreciate your honesty.” Calla is using her politician voice on him. The one she uses when she’s trying not to start a brawl on the senate floor. “I was hoping we could talk about your concerns.”

“It’s not so much a concern as a visceral fear of losing any sense of privacy for the rest of my life,” Adam says. “This is different. It’s not the same as running for congress or whatever. They’re gonna dig and dig and dig and tear everyone apart.”

“I’m not going to let them do that, Adam.” Calla sits across from him, is trying her best to ignore his collection of water glasses. “If you want to stay out of it completely, you can stay out of it.”

“You don’t get it. They’re not going to let that happen. That’s not how it works,” Adam gets out. “They’re going to be following us and they’re not going to leave us alone, even if you don’t win.” 

“We can take precautions and measures,” Calla says. 

“Why do you even want to do this, anyways?” Adam’s tone isn’t what he means it to be, or maybe it is. “What do you think you could do that you can’t do better in the Senate? President you spend so much time doing stupid publicity shit and meeting with foreign leaders.” 

“I think I can do a lot of good,” Calla says. “I could use executive orders to fix things that have been stuck in congress for years, and I could appoint so many good judges to help fix the justice system. Meeting with foreign leaders is super important especially when I want to divert funds from the military towards better use.” 

Dammit. She’s thought about this. It’s still not a good answer, as far as the pundits are concerned, but she’s not speaking to them and she knows it. 

“I don’t want you to do this.” There, Adam has said it. He doesn’t super care if it sounds selfish. This is where it’s not just about her career anymore—he doesn’t care about her long hours or shit like that, because it’s her life and her job. Running for president is where he gets dragged into the equation. 

“What can I say to help? I know this is a huge adjustment,” Calla says, reaches her hand out to squeeze his knee. Adam just turns his desk chair around. 

“You’ve already made up your mind. It doesn’t matter what I think,” Adam spits out. “Why are you even bothering?” 

“Can you please turn around when we’re having a conversation?” Calla’s voice is even, measured, calm. It always is. 

Adam feels his control on his anger snap, as easily as a twig dried out by harsh autumn air. 

“This isn’t a conversation.” He’s standing, feels his hands shaking. “You’ve already made up your mind and you just want me to tell you that it’s okay and that I agree with you but I don’t. I _don’t_. I don’t want to be your prop for the next fucking year and a half, don’t want the press speculating every time I step outside of the house. I can’t handle that, Calla.”

He feels his breath, hot and heavy, in his chest. He’s so fucking tired of everyone pretending he has a voice in any of this. 

“Just get out.” 

He recognizes the disappointment and the hurt on Calla’s face, but she just nods and leaves.

:: ::

The next day, Adam watches his classmates watch Calla’s announcement speech on their phones during calculus.

There are cameras and people parked outside of the school, waiting for him to come out. He feels sick to his stomach. This is exactly what he doesn’t want—he can’t even register the review of the differentiation theorems because he has no idea what he’s going to do.

“May I be excused?” Adam hears his own voice, but he doesn’t remember saying it, doesn’t remember moving until he’s in a bathroom stall and his head is between his knees. 

With numb fingers, he tries to fumble for his phone, but then he remembers that Blue is with Maura and Calla at the event and so she’s not here. It’s just him and he has no idea what to do but he can’t talk to them but he has no idea how he’s going to get home and there’s no one who could come sign him out anyway to leave right now and he has class and he can’t miss class because AP exams are coming up and those are important and—

 _Fuck_. 

Adam opens the stupid meditation app, watches a ball roll around the screen and tries to match his breathing to it until his thoughts stop spinning enough so that he can swallow, so that he can suck in a breath without it burning through his throat and chest. 

One glance at his watch tells him calc is long over and he’s late to AP world history. 

He lets his mind drift. All he can think about is the persistent hoard outside the doors of the school. Someone is writing notes on his papers and filling in his worksheets but his brain is just worrying about what he’s going to do when the day is over. 

Blue is supposed to pick him up. 

Is she going to know what’s the right entry to go to? Will they recognize her car? What happens if they swarm her car?

He can barely walk straight when the final bell rings. His heart is thumping a frenzied funeral march in his ears and the second the spring hair hits his face his world becomes bright flashes and too many voices. 

Adam sees Blue’s car, swallows the bile in his throat and tries to walk without pushing anyone but they’re not letting him leave. He can’t see, can’t hear, doesn’t know if he’s answering anything they’re saying but time has reached a standstill. He can’t move forward, can’t move backward, can’t do anything more than sit trapped in the amber. 

There’s an arm around his shoulder, suddenly, and Adam bites back a scream. 

“It’s me, it’s Blue. Just keep walking, you’re doing great,” she says, steers him somehow out of the mass of light and sound and into her obnoxiously green Prius. He feels a hand on his neck, and Adam’s head is between his knees. “Stay there. I’m going to start driving but don’t tell either mom.” 

Adam just nods, sucks in some breaths in the quiet and manages to pick up his head. He puts on his seatbelt, because the last thing they need is a picture of him riding without a seatbelt to surface. 

“You should have called and said there were people outside,” Blue said. “Fuck, the school should have said something.” 

“I… you were at the event. So were both of the moms. I… I…” Adam can’t make the words come out right. 

“Take some breaths,” is what Blue says in response. “I know this is like… everything you were super fucking worried about coming to pass like immediately.” 

Adam just nods. His hands are starting to finally have some feeling again, the first time since calculus, and they find his water bottle, water still blisteringly cold. He holds the water in his mouth, tries to use the shock to force his brain back into submission. He repeats the process a few times. 

“Has the whole day been like this?” Blue’s eyes are on the road, but Adam can see behind the big sunglasses the worry lines forming on her forehead. Her hair is starting to frizz from stress already. It’s void of its normal menagerie of clips, and her makeup is toned down about eight times from her normal style. It’s a very smoothed over Blue. A perfect first daughter look. 

“Yes,” Adam says. “You can’t tell the moms, though.” 

He’s not trying to protect Calla’s infant campaign, he’s not. That’s not it at all—he doesn’t want to continue the fight of the year. About him and stress and how if he doesn’t manage his anxiety then it affects his stomach problems and his allergies and his sleep problems and blah blah blah. 

“They need to know that you were swarmed leaving school, Adam,” Blue says. “And that it was bad enough you had a fucking panic attack.” 

“They don’t need to know that part. Blue, there’s enough going on. Just tell them the first bit.” Blue is pulling into their driveway now. Adam is looking at her seriously. “I’m dealing with the other shit.” 

“Whatever, man,” is what Blue responds. “But this is just day one.” 

“Is Calla home?” Adam asks, takes another drink of ice water and then shoves his water bottle back into his bag. “Or is she at the new office?” 

“She’s working. Maura’s home, though,” Blue says. She’s contemplating guilt-tripping Adam, because it’s clear that Calla was missing Adam’s presence at her campaign launch, but she can’t do that. Not after the day they’ve both had. 

Adam just nods. 

“How was your day?” Maura asks, the second they walk in the door. She’s in her yoga clothes and chopping vegetables for something in the kitchen. 

“Okay,” Adam manages, but he hears how harsh his own voice sounds. He knows Maura doesn’t miss it. 

“There were a shitton of paparazzi outside of the school,” Blue explains. “They swarmed him.”

“That’s unacceptable,” Maura says. “Are you okay, Adam?” She moves towards like she’s about to start inspecting him for bruises or something. 

“I’m fine. It’s just… a lot,” Adam says. “I have some homework to do, though, so I’m gonna go to my room.” What he doesn’t want to do is talk about it. 

“Are you sure? We’ll call the school and get some safety measures set up, but are you sure you’re okay?” Maura’s hand is on Adam’s shoulder. He knows she means well, that this isn’t her fault, but he also knows that talking about it is opening up a whole vault that is just going to start a fight.

“Yeah. It is what it is. It’s why I told her it was a bad fucking idea, but whatever.” 

And Adam goes up the stairs. He has work to do, has to make sense of whatever he managed to write down today and get back on top of his study schedule. His mom is running for president. He’s not.

:: ::

Here’s the thing: it doesn’t get better.

Adam isn’t really talking to Calla, which isn’t helping. How can he, though, when he drags himself off of his desk or out of his bed after another night of barely sleeping only to be greeted by cameras the second he gets to school? 

He’s so fucking stressed all the time. He has AP exams in a week. There will probably be a Buzzfeed article about that soon, but he’s been trying to study but it’s hard when he can’t fucking sleep. It’s hard when he can’t go get a coffee without seeing photographers, can’t go to school without it being documented. 

“Adam, what the fuck is this?” Blue is at Adam’s locker. 

“Uh, nothing,” Adam says, when it could be any number of things. “What are you doing here, go to class.” 

“Um, no. How much Red Bull have you fucking been drinking?” Blue asks, pushes her way in so she can see his stuff. “And _pills_? Jesus fuck, Adam. No.” 

“It’s fine. It’s just until AP exams are over,” Adam says. “Don’t fucking tattle, Blue.”

“I literally have to. You know this much caffeine fucks with your stomach meds and shit,” Blue says, pulls out her phone and takes a picture. 

“Just because you’re older by like a year, doesn’t mean you have to act like a third mom,” Adam spits out, tries to grab the phone out of Blue’s hand. It doesn’t work. 

“I care about you, dickwaffle. And they’re worried enough as it is,” Blue says, sends the picture. “I’d expect a mom to come pick you up before the end of next period.” 

“I thought Calla was in Iowa,” is all Adam can say as he fiddles with the strap on his backpack. 

“She leaves tonight,” is all Blue says. 

Adam hates when Blue’s right. She’s right about Calla still being there, and she’s right about him getting called down to the office about ten minutes into his practice exam for AP chemistry. Both of his moms are waiting. 

God _fucking_ damn it. 

“Hi, kiddo,” Maura says, offers him a tight smile. “Let’s go home and then we’ll talk, okay?” 

“I don’t think I have a choice,” Adam mumbles, refuses to look at Calla. “How many are outside?” 

“Security is taking care of it,” Calla says, and Adam finally looks up and sees her worry lines deepening. 

For the first time in the month since Calla has announced her campaign for president, Adam walks out of the school to silence. It feels like he’s coughing up salt water that’s been in his lungs so long it’s festered into mold.

“We need to talk,” Maura says, when they’re safely back in their little townhouse and Adam is trapped on the couch. They’re both sitting across from him. 

“There’s nothing to talk about. I just haven’t cleaned out my locker this year,” Adam tries, but Calla just raises an eyebrow and he knows trying to out-maneuver a Washington politician is never going to go well. 

“You look exhausted,” Calla says. “I know that it’s been really tough, with the press and everything.”

“You don’t know,” Adam says, feels the anger spark the caffeine in his gut and now his stomach is on fire. “They’ve been there every fucking day. I can’t do anything without them being there.” 

“We’ll tighten security,” Maura says, squeezes Adam’s knee. “Let’s focus on how you’re feeling, and the solutions will come from there.” 

“You’re not going to school this week,” Calla says, stares straight at Adam. “You should have told us that you were having this level of sleep and anxiety issues.”

“You can’t do that. I have exams next week.” Adam tastes the vitriol, like motor oil, on his tongue. “I’m not just taking a break because you all decided to notice right now.” 

“We have noticed, kid. We were trying to give you space,” Calla says, voice perfectly calm. How the fuck is she calm? “You need a break. You need to sleep and you need a break from the press around here.” 

“I’m still going to be stressed about my tests,” Adam says. “And all of my teachers are doing review sessions this week it’s too important to miss.” 

“You know we can get you all of the material from those. Be honest with us here, Adam: would going even be worth it?” Maura’s using her gentlest, kindest voice. “Would you be able to focus, feeling like you’re feeling?”

Adam knows the answer is no. But he’s not willing to tell them that. They don’t get to be right about everything, not when they let him go through this day after day after day apparently knowing. 

“That settles it. You’re coming to Iowa with me,” Calla says. 

“What? No,” Adam gets out, stands up fast. He’s exhausted, but he’s certain he missed a huge logical leap there. “I don’t want to help your stupid campaign.” 

“Use your kind words, Adam.” Maura puts a hand on Adam’s shoulder, and he sits back down. “It’s logistically the best option. I have some fundraising events all over the place, so I can’t really keep an eye on you.”

“I don’t need a babysitter,” is what Adam manages to say. What he doesn’t say is that he hasn’t had a real conversation with Calla in a month and now he’s going to be stuck on a plane, in a hotel, on a bus with Calla. 

“We’d feel more comfortable if you were with one of us,” Calla says. “We can make sure you’re getting the rest that you need. You don’t have to do anything for the campaign—you might have to be backstage or on fair grounds at some events, but Iowans don’t bother strangers. I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do.” 

It kind of fucking sucks, sometimes, how good of moms they are. Part of Adam wants her to force him to be a face of the campaign, to keep fuelling the anger, to keep giving him a reason to keep going. He’s so fucking tired the only thing besides the caffeine keeping him afloat is the resentment. 

It makes her much harder to yell at, too. Goddamn gay adoptive moms and their emotionally conscious parenting.

:: ::

“How did you sleep?” It’s day one in Iowa. Adam isn’t just annoyed by the fact that he’s greeted not just by his one allotted cup of coffee for the day, but by his mom and Henry Cheng. For all that Adam has no event schedule, Henry and his moms have crafted a very structured schedule, with his only study time for AP exams in the morning with another hour in the evening, and an early bedtime at ten pm preceded by his mandated anxiety exercises. Afternoons are spent with Calla.

“Better. Woke up a few times, but I drank some cold water and it helped,” Adam admits. It’s not weird talking about these things in front of Cheng. Henry has been Calla’s chief of staff since her very first race for congress, so this isn’t the worst he’s seen Adam. He’s known Adam since day one, when Adam was a walking, crying, sniffling allergic reaction terrified to leave Calla’s arms—Henry’s absurdly spiked hair might be a little grayer, a little shorter, but he has the same insane energy now as he did trying to convince Adam to watch Clifford so that Calla could give a campaign speech without having to hold Adam through it. 

“That’s great, honey,” Calla says. “Today is a nice easy day. I have some staff and volunteer meetings this morning before the teacher’s town hall, and then this afternoon we have an event at a county fair. I have to give my stump speech and meet people, but then we can walk around.” 

“Ah yes. Time to kiss hands and shake babies,” Adam says, an old joke of theirs. It’s harder to keep up his anger now that he’s slept, now that there aren’t cameras in his face all the time. And… he missed her. It’s stupid. But even if she might be the next president of the United States, she’s still one of his moms. 

“You know the drill,” Calla says. “Henry has all of your review stuff ready, and I think your calc and chem teachers wrote down some times this morning to skype if you had questions.” 

“Are you feeling prepared for your exams?” Henry asks. “You’re taking… a lot for a sophomore.”

“I don’t really know what it’s like to feel prepared. Anxiety, man,” Adam explains. “I think calc and chem will be fine. World and stats are more variable.” 

Henry is itching to get Adam in front of the camera in a controlled setting. He _knows_ America will love the shithead genius kid that Adam is when he’s not feeling completely overwhelmed. He knows that they’ll like his dry humor, that they’ll appreciate how informed Adam is, and Adam’s story is one that America always loves. Adopted out of a bad situation at a young age, grown up to thrive despite various lingering health. Nothing there doesn’t help Calla in this race. But he can’t ask, not when Adam is just starting to get it back together, not when Calla would mercilessly destroy him for even asking right now. 

“Call me if you need anything at all,” Calla says, kisses Adam’s forehead as she stands up. “And, Henry, remember the rules.”

“No coffee, no matter how politely he asks. Food allergies are dairy and strawberries—I have his epipen, stomach, and his environmental allergy meds just in case for the fair later anyway. School stuff from nine until noon,” Henry recites, looks proud of himself. 

“You’ve been trained so well,” Adam says, pats the spikes as he downs his coffee. “I’m gonna go shower.”

:: ::

Okay.

Adam doesn’t want to admit this. 

His mom is standing on a stage, in front of a huge crowd, in Iowa. His mom, a lesbian latina woman, has gathered a huge crowd in one of the whitest states in America, and she’s speaking into a crowd that is cheering almost her every sentence. He hears her, as she talks about how she grew up in the poor part of Virginia, stories he hasn’t heard before, and all the ways she wants to help this country. 

She talks about Adam. And Blue. And Maura. And people are cheering for their family, in 2015, in Iowa, when a few miles down the road, other people are cheering for a man who has called their family an aberration and a horror. 

“She’s doing good,” Adam says to Henry, because he has no idea what else to say. He doesn’t want to admit this. 

His mom looks like a president. Like someone he wants to lead the country. 

“She is,” Henry says. “Her crowd numbers just keep growing,” he says. She’s talking to individual people now. 

There’s a little boy. He looks like Adam, small and dirty for his age, holding the hand of a woman who looks nothing like him, but who is encouraging him to pull his hand away from his mouth so that Calla can understand him. 

Adam’s blaming it on the change in environment. That’s the only reason why his eyes are super itchy all of a sudden—it’s the allergies. It’s always the allergies. 

Calla sits the little boy on her lap, and they talk about something. 

“She would be a really fucking good president.” Dammit, Adam has said it out loud. And Henry doesn’t forget anything. 

“Yeah, she really would be,” Henry responds. “I’m glad that you’re finally seeing it.” 

“I just… I know she would be amazing. I just don’t know if I can do it,” Adam admits. “I can’t handle all of the stupid cameras and attention.” 

“You’ve never been comfortable with it,” Henry muses. Calla glances over to them, so Henry gives her a little wave and then she’s back in the groove. “But you know she would do anything for you. Tighten security, let you do school from home, _anything_. She’s wanted this for so long and it’s looking like it could be real.” 

“She’s polling well?” Adam hates how nervous he is for her. He doesn’t want to get invested if she’s just going to be knocked out in the first round. 

“Really fucking well. But you can’t tell her that—she doesn’t want to know,” Henry says. 

“Okay. I want to help, then. Like Blue does, but like… you know me,” Adam says, hopes Henry understands. 

“You just made my life so much easier by saying that, kid.” Henry is looking out at the fair. “She’s been so worried about you. I’m no longer gonna have to convince her not to drop out just to get you to talk to her again. And I get your drift. I know what events are a no go for you.” 

“I get to tell her, though,” Adam says, and he and Henry shake on it.

:: ::

He waits to tell Calla until the sun is setting on the fair, when they’re watching it with ears of corn in their hands.

“I think you’re going to be a great president,” is all that Adam says, in the middle of one of her rants about the Republican party, or maybe about corn nuts. “I told Henry that I want to help.”

“Adam,” Calla says, her arms suddenly around him. “You don’t have to do anything. It’s my job, not yours.” 

“I want to,” Adam says, surprised that he really, actually, truly means it. “I’m sorry for being a dick. I watched your speech today, and you talking to that little kid, and…” 

Calla squeezes him tight. 

“You don’t have to apologize for anything, peanut,” she says. “I know how hard the press have been on you. How hard all of this has been on you, on top of the stress you already had.” Calla takes a breath, and he sees she’s grinning from ear to ear. “You liked the stump speech? I’ll have to tell Jon.” 

“It’s really good,” Adam says. “It’s just so… you.” 

Calla hugs him tight again. 

“That means more than you know, buddy,” she says, and he hears how tight her voice is. 

Adam knew, from that first dinner, that eventually he and Calla would have this conversation. She’s too good at what she does, is too good of a person, of a mom, for him to drag out a fight for the whole year and a half of an election. He loves Maura, but Calla has always been Adam’s favorite. They stay up late drinking too much coffee doing too much work—they’re wired almost the same. When he was too little to be anything other than a ball of anxiety, he would refuse to stay with Maura. Calla would take him with her to congress, sit him in her lap with a coloring book while she debated bills and glared at anyone who tried to tell her it was unprofessional. 

“I want a good, haunted room in the White House, though,” Adam jokes. “I need to unlock some new insomniac levels.” 

“You’re thinking too big for boots,” Calla says, ruffles his head. “And your mom would never, ever let that happen. Can you imagine?” 

“I’m pretty sure someone’s died in every one of those bedrooms. Think there’s still some tuberculosis for me to pick up?” Adam asks. 

“Now she’s going to go on a cleaning spree before she lets you in there,” Calla says. “Let’s go find Henry before he has an aneurysm over whatever the hell happened on the evening news.” 

Adam allows himself an exhale. Maybe this won’t be a disaster.

:: ::

Calla wins Iowa by a landslide. Adam stands next to her, smiling and hugging. The camera flashes don’t even bother him.

It all starts to go to shit the very next week.


	2. ii. the dnc

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it all goes to shit after iowa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we go!
> 
> i am introducing my big ~twist~ to the rwarb au here so yee haw
> 
> there's some descriptions of illness (vomit, nausea, lethargy, etc.) so if this is bothersome, please avoid and stay safe friends!

“Are you feeling okay?” That’s Blue, as Adam pours his third cup of coffee of the morning. They’re in either Michigan, Wisconsin, or Minnesota. Adam really isn’t sure. 

“Yeah, just tired,” Adam answers, like he’s answered every single morning. Calla had won Iowa by a landslide, then won Vermont, then dominated Super Tuesday. 

The Republican party is kind of shitting itself. It’s looking more and more like she’s going to be the nominee, which means each party’s worst nightmare is the other party’s candidate. 

“Have you been sleeping okay?” Calla asks, feels Adam’s forehead just in case he has a fever. He doesn’t. 

“Yeah. I’ve been sleeping early and just blacking out. I just feel super tired,” Adam says. “Probably just campaigning.” 

“The good news is there’s a break in two weeks,” Calla says. “We’re all going back to Virginia and we are getting everything done that we need to do, including all of our well check ups and stuff.” 

“Let’s limit the caffeine,” Maura says, takes the coffee out of Adam’s hands. She’s frowning. Everyone is a little leaner from campaigning, but Adam is looking _thin_. 

“Doesn’t matter,” Adam says, just rubs at his temples. “What’s the schedule today?” 

“Family event in the morning, then I have meetings in the afternoon, and the gala tonight,” Calla says. “Are you feeling up to it? I know midwest food isn’t the best for your stomach…” 

“I’ll be fine. Henry’s got his fanny pack and everything,” Adam says, tries to put on a smile. That’s the other thing. He’s not just tired, not just constantly fighting back stupid regional pollen with benadryl and zyrtec, but his stomach is acting up. It’s always cramping or hurting, no matter how safe of foods he’s eating. 

“Are you sure? You can take a rest, honey,” Maura says. “You look like you’re not feeling great.” 

Adam knows how important this is. If Calla does well in the upcoming primary elections, she essentially wins the nomination. He can tough it out for a few more weeks—she’s toughed out worse for longer for him. This seems like a small sacrifice. If only the last stupid dude left in the race would just drop out already, but alas, the audacity of old white men. Almost irredeemably behind in the polls and in delegate counts, but refusing to give up. 

“I’m fine, Mom. It’s probably just allergies.” Adam plasters on a smile. 

He takes pictures at the event, recites noncombative answers that Jon has prepared for him, and tries not to think about how he just wants to curl up and sleep with a hot pad curled around his abdomen. 

“Kid, you gotta down like three of the applesauce packs,” Henry says in his ear. “You’re looking pale.”

Blue’s smile next to him falters. Suddenly, she’s not as invested in helping serve pancakes or whatever it is they’re doing, but in whatever Adam looks like. 

“I’m fine, Blue,” Adam promises, tries to shake back the fatigue that’s seemed to set into his bones. “Just probably having more stupid allergic reactions in my stomach and shit.”

He downs three of the applesauce pouches, turns back around and continues helping. They feel like rocks in his stomach, but he knows Henry is texting the information back to his moms. 

Adam doesn’t know why they’re so worried all of a sudden. Everyone’s run down, and everyone’s feeling a little sick. It can’t just be him.

:: ::

Calla knows, she really knows, that she should be focusing on this briefing about poll numbers and the gala and shit, but she can’t. She’s on email with Maura, her personal account on her personal phone because she has bigger shit to fry. Fish. Bigger fish to fry.

_I’m worried about Adam. He’s really not looking well, but I was trying to set up all of our appointments for Virginia—his GI retired. I’m having trouble finding one at Children’s DC that’s okay with our insurance and his Medicaid and specializes in the right areas. Can you take a look later?_

_Love,  
Maura_

Well, that’s not good. Health insurance is always a bit of a nightmare with Adam—they’re extremely grateful that Virginia has children adopted out of the foster system retain their Medicaid, as it’s been extremely helpful with his health problems—but managing it when they have their own insurance as well is a fucking nightmare. And they really need to get Adam in to see a GI. 

He’s very clearly lost weight. Unexplainable weight—this isn’t Adam messing around with his medications and the anxiety or insomnia isn’t affecting his diet. He’s trying his best, but something is going very wrong. 

Calla types out her response.

_Totally agree. Need to figure out what’s going on with his stomach ASAP. I’ll have Henry look, too—he’s much better with this kind of research than me. Are all of the other appointments set?_

_Love,  
Calla_

Hopefully they can figure this out. Now that the nomination is more than just a pipe dream, Calla knows everything will just start getting crazier. It’s why she has a personal email—everyone is worried about hacks to work emails, and she needs to protect her childrens’ privacy, especially on healthcare-related matters. The only thing she uses her email and phone for is to talk to her family about family things. 

It’s been completely cleared, is 100% Kosher as far as campaign legality and her Senate job are concerned. It’s just another added layer of protection. 

It’s the only way she feels safe going back and forth with Maura about insurance and doctors until they finally figure out there’s no one who can see Adam available that one day. They’re going to have to hope his pediatrician has the answers they want.

:: ::

“How long is this all supposed to take? I have so much make up work to do,” Adam says, as he’s sat in his private room at DC Children’s. That’s the best way to do this. Him and blue in adjacent exam rooms, Maura going between them, and the doctors rotating in and out instead of them going to all of the clinics. Calla has meetings, otherwise it would have just been divide and conquer with the moms and them.

That’s what their fancy new secret service agents decided. 

“Almost done with my gynecologist appointment, Adam,” Blue says, super loud on purpose. “Then it’s your turn.” 

“I’ll trade you,” Adam offers, and he hears a loud laugh before Blue muffles it. 

“You do my gyno exam, and I’ll do your AP econ? Deal,” Blue says. 

“How come your senior year is this chill? It’s not fair,” Adam says. 

“Gap year, baby, so no applications to worry about,” Blue says. She thinks it’s better than trying to adjust to college during the hike up to November, and both of the moms agree. Adam is determined to go at his normal pace, despite everything—he’s taking a mix of college and AP classes, is studying hard for the SAT and ACT, is planning on applying to college in the fall anyway. Even though each time he’s sat down to do homework in the last two weeks he’s fallen asleep over his books. 

“Stop shouting about the gynecologist please,” Maura says, as she steps into Adam’s room. “It might be making the secret service uncomfortable.” 

“Blue’s done?” Adam asks, continues swinging his legs. “I’m pretty sure at least Matt has heard worse from us already.” 

“Yup. I can’t believe we couldn’t get a GI, so you’ve got your pediatrician, your allergist, and then your psychiatrist.” 

“The unholy trinity,” Adam says, and he knows that absolutely nothing is going to go well. 

It doesn’t. He’s lost a ton of weight, like… way more than he thought. But she thinks it’s a combination of allergies and his stomach issues and stress, so she decides the best solution is he takes a break from all of the campaign stuff and sticks to safe foods until they can get him in to see a gastroenterologist. It’s not her speciality—it’s the best advice she can offer. Allergist backs it up with wanting to start up allergy shots again and the psychiatrist, after talking about campaign stress for like five minutes, ups his Zoloft for the first time in years. 

Adam doesn’t even care. He hates the shots, but he feels fucking awful enough anyways that the itchiness and the congestion and the hives aren’t even super registering. 

“I can’t believe I can’t go to Chicago with you all,” Adam says, once they’re in the SUV. “This is stupid.” 

“We need to figure out what’s going on, peanut,” Maura explains. “Calla and I are going to try and figure out and see if I can hang back until a few days before the actual debate.” 

“You can’t do that,” Adam says, shakes his head. “Mom, I’m not sick. I don’t have a fever. This is just my stupid stomach being stupid or something. If the next two weeks of primaries go well, the nomination is hers. We can’t stop now.” 

“Leaving you alone for two weeks is a long time, especially if you’re not feeling well,” Maura says. “Calla and I need to discuss what we want to do.”

“I wouldn’t be alone. We have secret service now,” Adam says. “That’s like a built-in babysitter that reports directly to you guys.” 

“That’s not at all my job description,” Matt says. “But we would keep him safe, m’am.” 

Adam really does like Matt. He’s somewhere between the ages of twenty-five and thirty and built like a fucking tank—he has a sour patch kids and candy crush addiction like a twelve-year-old and a sense of humor that puts Adam at ease about the fact that he has a bodyguard, now. A bodyguard who knows lots of intimate details about Adam that he needs to know in order to keep him safe, but he never makes a big deal about it. 

“We’ll talk about it, okay? She said she’s working from home right now,” Maura says, as they’re pulling up to their townhouse. 

“I could use the quiet, to catch up on work,” Adam admits. “With campaigning and, you know, this stuff… I need to play catch up a bit.” 

Calla, unsurprisingly, is not on board with Adam staying on his own for two weeks. 

“Absolutely not,” she says, the second Adam even brings it up. “We don’t know what’s wrong, and it’s a risk I’m not willing to take.”

“Henry would back me up,” Adam tries. He doesn’t know why he’s using his last bit of energy on this argument, but he knows that he needs to. They’ve all given so much for this campaign, and now that she’s two days of voting away from a mathematically-assured victory it’s so, so stupid to fumble the ball now just because Adam’s feeling a little off. Realistically, her democratic opponent should have withdrawn last week, but you know. Men. 

The republicans are exclusively going after Calla, everything from how their family is the devil’s doing to her work on education and healthcare reform. They know who their opponent is. They’ve been oddly silent, though, recently… 

“You know the election does not come before being your mom,” Calla says. 

“You’re so close, and I know you have a bunch of stuff planned that would be a bitch to cancel. There’s secret service and I’m sixteen and you can call every day. I don’t feel good and I’m behind on work; I’m probably just going to be napping and doing homework.” Adam takes a deep breath. “Mom, you’re so close to the nomination. Don’t not make history because my stomach is a little off.”

In the end, they come up with a plan that involves scheduled facetimes, constant reporting, and backups in case Adam starts feeling worse. 

Adam’s not going to tell her he’s been slowly feeling worse and worse since Iowa. He can’t ruin this for her, not now.

:: ::

It all goes to shit two days before the final democratic debate.

Adam wakes up, and he’s immediately rushing to the bathroom. His knees crack when they hit the tile, and he doesn’t know how long he heaves but he knows that it impossibly makes his cramping worse. _Fuck_. 

He’s been doing nothing but eating safe foods, boiling fucking fruit and eating plain rice and chicken and his stomach hurts like nothing else. His brain feels hazier, too, like he hasn’t added a morning nap to his schedule along with the normally programmed afternoon nap. 

“You okay in there, kid?” At least Matt is his secret service person today. 

“Yeah. Think ‘m sick,” Adam manages. He stands on shaking legs, hands clutching the bathroom counter so he can wobble back to bed like a baby giraffe. He’s too exhausted to even think about washing his mouth out. 

He feels impossibly thirsty. 

“Oh, geez,” Matt says, and Adam sees him reach for his phone.

“Don’t tell them. Not yet. Probably just a bug, and she’s gotta focus on the debate,” Adam says, curls up into the fetal position back under his covers. 

“Oh, kid. You haven’t even seen yet,” Matt says. 

“Seen what?” Adam asks, reaches out for his phone and groans at how his whole body protests. His phone is just a mess of political notifications. 

His mom’s private email was hacked, by a private firm with known ties to the RNC. The Republican fucking party fucking hacked his mom’s private email. 

Oh, _fuck_.

They think she’s talking about the Medicare and Medicaid bill. Most of the emails are blacked out, by the hackers, and Adam knows why. She wasn’t illegally disclosing secure government information to Maura—she was trying to find a fucking doctor that takes Adam’s insurance. 

“This is all my fault,” Adam chokes out, has to pause to have another heaving fit over the trash can. “She didn’t do anything wrong, Matt.” 

“All the RNC found were some emails with the words in them. It’s bullshit,” Matt agrees, as he’s rubbing Adam’s back. “And I’m guessing I know what the emails are about.” 

“The pundits are going crazy,” Adam says. He’s still curled over the bin, but he can multitask. He’s scrolling through twitter with teary eyes as he’s forced to heave some more. “They’re saying this level of irresponsibility is unfit for the presidency. She’s gonna get nailed tomorrow.” 

“Let’s call her, kid,” is all Matt says. “Whatever they’re saying, eventually all the bullshit will be cut through.” 

Here’s the thing: Adam knows his moms. This whole thing could be over in twenty minutes if they just said the blatant truth: they were discussing their son’s medical care and coverage, as they are allowed to do as his legal guardians. 

Here’s the problem: they won’t do that. Calla would rather take stupid bullshit fire from the right and left and pundits and D list politicians trying to get in a hit than disclose anything like that about Adam to the public. And especially not under these circumstances, with a shitty, sneaky, illegal hack being the source of it all. 

“Does he know?” Calla asks, the second she answers Matt’s FaceTime. 

“I know, mom,” Adam says. “Matt, can I get like a big thing of water? I’m super thirsty,” Adam says, and Matt takes the hint and goes to get it. 

“You sound… are you feeling okay, sweetheart?” Calla is staring intently at Adam through the camera. Adam manages a nod, swallows back more bile. 

“Don’t freak out. Think I just managed to get the stomach flu,” he explains. “Don’t send Maura or Blue home over it. I can handle it.” 

“Adam,” Calla starts, is using her full Mom voice. It’s very close to her presidential voice, actually. “If you’re sick, you need someone there.”

“Matt’s here,” Adam shoots back, as Matt comes back with the water. “And you need everyone there right now.” 

“I can handle this, Adam,” Calla says. She looks exhausted, and Adam knows this whole shitshow broke somewhere during the night and she has not slept at all. “You need somewhere there.” 

“It does just seem like a bug,” Matt says, “if it helps.” Adam takes a big gulp of water. “And as of now he’s not having issues hydrating.”

“That is good, but…” Calla sighs, rubs at her face. “I really don’t like this, Adam.” 

“I just feel awful,” Adam admits. “But it’s not dangerous. You got a lot of shit to deal with.”

He can feel the water sloshing around inside of him, but he knows if he pukes it up in front of his mom or Matt it’s game over. 

“Someone is calling me every hour,” is what Calla says. “And I don’t want him alone. Ever.” 

Adam lets out a sigh of relief, which turns into a groan. 

“I’m so sorry, Mom,” Adam says. He knows, somewhere beneath the layers of haziness and nausea and illness, that he’s being kind of irrational. But they wouldn’t be in this mess if shit wasn’t so fucked up with him. “It’s my fault y’all were talkin’ so much about that stuff.” 

“It’s not your fault the rival political party decided to hack my personal account and frame innocent emails to manufacture a scandal,” Calla says. “I’m handling the politics, peanut. That’s my job.” 

“Kick everyone’s ass in the debate, then,” is what Adam says, before he’s heaving again.

:: ::

Adam knows something is bad. Time has kind of slipped away from him… he doesn’t know how much time has passed, but he knows he’s talked to Calla a few times. Acting has been weirdly easy, even though all he knows is that the bathroom is spinning and that he’s super fucking thirsty but no matter how much water he drinks it’s not staying down.

Matt has stepped out, and he’s convinced Jeanine or Janet or whoever that he doesn't want an audience. So that’s helped not bring down an invasion of moms. 

His stomach really fucking hurts, though. He just needs to hold out until tomorrow… after the debate he can tell someone and the moms will be coming home anyway. 

Adam’s really tired, but he’s also really thirsty. He thinks he’s mastered the art of sleep-puking, but then someone’s shaking his shoulders and ruining it. 

Oh, it’s Matt. He must be back from his errand or whatever. (It’s not an errand. Matt’s shift had ended, and he’s back for his next one.)

“Adam?” Matt sounds weird. Adam’s trying hard to keep his eyes open, because he wants Matt to stop tapping at his face. It’s annoying. 

“Stop,” Adam tries to say, but all he hears is a groan. 

“Shit.” That’s Matt again. “Okay, kid. Let’s see if you’ve got a fever.” Adam feels hands on his shoulders, and the whole world is suddenly gone. 

He hears Matt’s voice first again, weirdly pitched and with no discernable words first, feels the cool tub behind his back next. He opens his eyes and Matt is crouched in front of him, his phone on the floor. 

“He’s conscious again,” Matt says. “Adam, I’ve got your mom on the phone.” 

“‘M fine. Just the flu,” Adam gets out, winces at how fucked his voice sounds. “Gotta prep for the debate tomorrow.” 

“Adam, honey,” Calla starts, her voice shaking. The debate isn’t tomorrow—it’s in half an hour. “Don’t worry about that.” She’s already signaling to Henry, because fuck the debate. Something is seriously wrong. She needs a flight, from O’Hare to JFK, ASAP. That’s what she needs. 

“Adam,” Matt says, and Adam has no idea where he needs to look, so he just closes his eyes. Matt taps at his face again. “When did you last keep down water?” 

“Dunno. ‘M really thirsty, so I keep tryin’. It’s not staying,” Adam admits. “Can I have some more?” Adam doesn’t really know what day or hour it is, so he’s not going to commit to an answer.

“Alright,” Matt says, and Adam thinks he’s going to finally get some water, but then suddenly he is not on the ground anymore. 

“Put me down,” Adam says. Not only is this probably super humiliating, but the movement is making his stomach revolt and he is two seconds away from puking all over Matt. 

“No can do, bud. Aim for the bag,” Matt says. “We’re heading to Children’s National, Calla. They’re getting a private room in the ER ready.” 

“No ER,” Adam says. And then he’s aiming for the bag, but there’s nothing but water so it just ends up on the hardwood floor. Calla isn’t gonna be happy about that. “Need m’phone.” 

“I got your phone,” Matt says. “And it’s been days, kid. You need to see a doctor. I’m not arguing.” He deposits Adam in the backseat of the car on his side, positions a bucket right underneath Adam’s head. “I’m going to do my best to drive smoothly. Stay on your side. Calla’s still on speaker.” 

“Mom,” Adam says, because he knows she’s going to do something rash that will jeopardize her chances of becoming president all for the sake of making sure this stupid stomach bug is better. “Don’t come. It’s nothin’. Prep for the debate.”

“The debate is in twenty minutes, sweetheart,” Calla says. “But it doesn’t matter. I don’t give a single shit about it. I’m getting a plane set up and me, Maura, and Blue will be there as soon as we can.” 

“No,” Adam gets out, takes a break to heave some more. “It’s Maura, Blue, and I.” Adam doesn’t really know why he’s breathing so hard, because he literally was carried out of the bathroom, but he can’t seem to stop it. “Don’t fuck shit up for me.” 

“I’m not. Mom before President,” Calla says. “I genuinely don’t care about anything else. I want to be there with you, peanut.” 

“Mom, no,” Adam tries again. But then Matt is slamming on the breaks, and Adam just groans. 

“We’re here. I’ll call again as soon as I can,” Matt says, hangs up the phone. 

“You gotta convince her,” Adam slurs, as Matt picks him up again. “Matt, you gotta. I’m not ruinin’ this for her.” 

Adam definitely pukes on Matt, but he just keeps trying to get out the same thing. Matt makes the executive decision to ignore him—he’s not really in the room, and it’s more crucial to keep an eye out for threats and focus on the directions the nurse is giving him on where to go. 

Matt can only breathe a slight sigh of relief when they’re in the private room, one agent outside of the door, when Adam’s on the gurney and he can take off his jacket. It smells… weirdly sweet. That shouldn’t be right. It can’t be. 

“Hi Adam, my name is Ginny and I’m a nurse at Children’s. I’m going to work on getting an IV in while Hallie gets some information from Matt,” the nurse says, and Adam just groans and tries to roll over and pukes off the side of the gurney. 

“Tell me it doesn’t smell sweet,” Matt says, and sure enough the nurse sniffs it and then Adam’s breath and frowns. He explains the situation—how yesterday he was watching Adam and thought it was a flu, but how Adam hasn’t been feeling well for weeks. He doesn’t have a fever. How he came in for his shift tonight and found Adam in the bathroom, about the dizziness and the lack of orientation and the loss of consciousness. 

“Okay,” Ginny says, after poking Adam for the fifth time. “I’m so sorry, honey, but I think we finally got it in.” Adam just grunts. “I’m going to have to poke you one more time—I’ll draw some labs off of the IV and get some fluids going, but let’s do a quick blood sugar test.” 

Matt looks like he’s just solved one of the mystery riddles he loves posing to Adam on car rides. 

“No more pokes,” Adam moans, tries to roll away from the nurse, but she firmly grabs his wrist and efficiently pokes one of his fingers and squeezes it for blood. 

“What’s his sugar?” Matt sounds devastated. 

“We need to have the doctor discuss that with you,” Ginny says. “I can’t give any diagnoses; I can only tell you test results. But we’ll have the ER doc and an endocrinologist down here as soon as possible and get these labs rushed.” 

Matt looks over and can tell Adam isn’t registering any of this information. If he was, he would already know what was going on. 

“What’s the test result? His moms are in Chicago and are getting a plane right now and it’s probably the last piece of info I can give them before they’re in the air,” Matt says. 

“Too high for our meter to read. Which means he’s well over 600 mg/dL,” the nurse says, a sad smile on her face. “We’ll get him started on fluids and get vitals while we wait.” 

Matt tries calling Calla, but she must already be on the plane. It just keeps going to voicemail. 

So he sits there with Adam. This isn’t part of the job description they give you when you sign up for the secret service, but he can’t imagine being anywhere else. Adam is a kid who really needs his moms right now, and Matt is trying to fill that impossible role. He holds Adam’s hand as the doctors come down and try to explain to Adam that he has Type One Diabetes, that the reason he feels so awful is that he’s in diabetic ketoacidosis, that he needs to be admitted to the intensive care unit and be started on an insulin drip. His electrolytes are way out of balance from the two days of puking, so he needs drips of potassium and magnesium and some other things, needs to be carefully rehydrated so he’s on strict bedrest and can’t even have water until his sugar starts to come down. 

None of it registers with Adam. 

“Your moms are coming,” Matt says, when Adam starts crying because it’s the only thing he can think of that would comfort him if he were in this situation. Adam just tries to bolt upright on the gurney, which just results in the blood pressure cuff and heart monitors blaring and Adam slumping back against the thin pillow. 

“No,” Adam gets out, as a nurse’s hand rests on his shoulder to try and avoid a repeat incident. They’re getting ready to move him to the ICU. “The debate. And the emails. This is all my fault.”

And Adam sobs. If it were Matt, he probably would have been crying hours ago, curled over the toilet, but this is the first time he’s ever seen this kid cry. He doesn’t really know what to do, so he keeps holding Adam’s hand, squeezes it a little, and with his other hand wipes away the tears. 

“It’ll be okay,” Matt says, “It’ll be okay, it’ll be okay, you’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay.” He just keeps repeating himself, and when they start moving the gurney he hears Adam’s breath hitch. 

Adam swallows back his own tears by the time they make it up to the ICU, but the ones he can’t are leaking silently out of the corners of his eyes. Matt just holds on tight, trusts that his colleagues are on more of a lookout than he is right now. 

“Alright, sweetheart,” a new nurse is saying, as Adam is wheeled into a room with a glass wall. The curtains are already drawn. “My name is Claire and I’ll be taking care of you tonight. We need to get you into a gown and get you situated, so Matt’s going to step out of the room for a few minutes. He’ll be right outside.” Her voice is calm, confident, and soothing, and Adam just nods and lets go of Matt’s hand.

“I’m really, really thirsty,” he gets out, his lips cracking as he says it.

“I know, but you’re getting enough fluids through the IV and we don’t want you vomiting more, because it will further aggravate your electrolyte imbalance,” Claire explains. 

“You have your phone right next to you. I’m just outside if you need anything,” Matt promises. As he steps back outside, he’s immediately greeted by Priya, another agent on shift. 

“No one’s sent out a message yet to the boss,” she says. “A motorcade is ready to pick them up from JFK, but they won’t land for another hour.” 

“I think we let the doctors explain,” Matt says. “They’re getting him changed and set up on the insulin drip and inserting a catheter and stuff right now.” He takes a deep breath, forces himself to feel the oxygen in his lungs. “I don’t think the drive time will make as much of a difference as a bad explanation.” 

“Alright. You’re going to sit in there with him?” Priya asks. “He’s way more comfortable with you.” 

“Yeah. I think he’ll probably sleep. I hope he sleeps—he needs rest,” Matt says. Words aren’t working quite right. 

So he sits with Adam. Adam is naturally a fidgety kid, not prone to sitting or laying or standing still, but he’s pretty much just laying there, eyes drooping, when Matt pulls a chair up next to the bed. He’s got another IV, and Matt can see he’s got a lot of IV bags, enough to almost max out the pump capacity of one IV stand. He looks younger, paler in the blue hospital gown than Matt ever recalls him being. 

Adam has one more thing he has to do before he can sleep. 

His whole body feels like it’s in total rebellion—his limbs are sore and he’s dying of thirst and his fingers are starting to bruise with all of the blood sugar checks and every movement feels horrible. He knows why, now, because his blood is basically a simple syrup and so his body is destroying itself trying to fix it, but that’s not helping. But he can’t focus on that yet. 

He’s got to fix this for Calla first. 

She can’t let these stupid fucking republicans walk all over her about these stupid emails and about missing a primary debate all because of Adam, when Adam could just fix it. They probably know she’s rushing out of the city because of something with him, but they won’t shut up until they weasel out the truth because either way they win. They get personal information they can use later on that they have no right to, or they get to keep on slamming her in the press.

Adam doesn’t know a whole lot at the moment, because the room spins when he tries to sit up, but he knows this: he’s going to stop it. All of this is about him anyway. 

**@adamparrish** The emails aren’t about any bill or government information. I, being a child adopted out of foster care in the state of Virginia, am a Medicaid recipient. I haven’t been feeling well for months, and they were… (1/?)

As soon as he’s done, he turns his phone off and finally gives into the pull of whatever drugs they’re giving him to ease the discomfort and the exhaustion of it all and is asleep before he can even comprehend what he’s done.

:: ::

Calla paces the entire plane ride, refreshes her phone and prays for an update fifty times while they land. As soon as they have service, she reads the stream of texts from Matt, updating her that Adam was safely in a room in an ER, that he was being taken care of, and then they just… stop.

_He’s being admitted. I’ll have the doctors explain more when you get here._

There’s no time to call him back. 

“Is he okay?” Blue asks, as they’re rushed through the airport to a waiting motorcade. “What’s going on?” 

“I don’t know,” Calla manages. “Matt’s just said he’s been admitted but that was almost two hours ago and he hasn’t texted since he said he wants the doctors to explain it not him.” 

“Shit,” Blue says, the color draining from her face. She looks at her phone, and— “ _Shit_.” 

Blue and Henry share a look. She knows he’s also seen the thread, which means not only does he know that Calla’s got even more shit to deal with on top of the sleepless nights she’s already had this week, but he knows what’s going on with Adam, too. 

The whole fucking world knows, but not Calla and Maura. Not his moms. 

Henry deletes the thread as soon as he sees it, nods at Blue. He knows what his job is here—his phone hasn’t stopped vibrating since they got signal, and he’s going to be doing damage control and explaining things and making calls for the campaign until Calla can step back into that roll. But he’s known Adam since he was a peanut, a four-year-old too scared to leave his blanket or his mom’s lap. He needs to see that Adam’s okay, too. 

“I’ll manage all the stuff with the debate,” Henry says quietly, pulls Calla’s phone out of her hand before she can leave the circle of information about Adam from people who know him to the news, who’s also reporting all on Adam, on his diagnosis. He’d be shocked if there weren’t camera crews waiting at Children’s National right now. 

Calla is too deep in her own panic to question it. She and Maura are both white knuckled, holding onto the other like they’re each other’s only lifeline. 

Blue can’t slow down her thoughts. She’s putting together the pieces from the last few months—Adam’s stomach cramps, the fatigue, the weight loss, and it’s making sense. He has diabetes. His pancreas doesn’t fucking work. 

They’re greeted at the hospital by his doctor, at the door. This isn’t normal, that much Blue knows from Adam’s various allergic reactions and asthma attacks, but she understands now that when you arrive to the hospital via a motorcade, it’s not going to be normal. 

“Is he okay? Where is Adam? What’s going on?” Calla asks. She somehow still looks presidential right now—she’s a worried mom but the tone of her voice isn’t betraying the terror underneath. She’s so worried that something is seriously wrong, that he’s been alone this whole time, but she knows that’s not going to get her the information that she wants.

“Hello,” the doctor says, her voice matching Calla’s calm professionalism. “My name is Dr. Emily Reiner and I’m an endocrinologist here. Let’s walk and talk.” 

“Endocrinologist?” That’s Maura. “What’s—”

“Bringing them up to ICU,” that’s one of the secret service agents into his walkie-talkie, and Maura’s words dry up in her throat. 

“ICU?” Calla manages to get out, and now the presidential facade has cracked. “Oh my god.” 

“Yes, Adam is currently being treated in the ICU, but his vitals are stable,” the doctor explains. “Adam came in with a blood sugar over 600, so he’s on an insulin drip to bring it down—we believe the cause is the onset of Type One Diabetes. He was, and still is, in diabetic ketoacidosis, which is what we’re treating with the insulin drip, and is the cause of the severe nausea and dehydration.” 

“Oh my god,” Calla says, lifts a shaking hand to her mouth. She has no idea what to say to any of this. She knows ketoacidosis doesn’t just happen, and if she wasn’t so busy campaigning they might have noticed this sooner. They might have caught it before it got this bad. 

“I know this is a lot to take in right now, and that there’s some crazy things floating around the internet,” the doctor continues. “But his sugar is starting to come down and we’re hoping by tomorrow afternoon we can get it under 200 and transition him to injections. Once he’s safe with that, we can step him down from ICU.” 

“What do you mean the internet?” Calla asks, as she slides open the door to Adam’s room. 

“I’ll show you later,” Blue promises. She knows Calla doesn’t hear her, because her focus has narrowed in to Adam. 

“Mom,” is all Adam says. He tries to sit up, because seeing his moms is all that it takes to break the ice coating of calm he’s encased himself in. What he feels is his whole body protest, beneath the spinning and the pulsing his head has going on. 

“I’m here, sweetheart,” Calla says, and then Adam is encased in her arms and the flood starts. He’s realizing how terrible he feels, how terrified he is, but Calla and Maura are here so it’ll be fine. It’ll be okay. 

“Sh, honey, you’re okay,” Calla says, as Maura sits on his other side. He just focuses on that, on the hands rubbing his back and in his hair instead of the gross feeling that’s building with every sob. 

“Hi,” Claire is saying, as she enters the room again. “I’m Claire, his nurse for the night. It’s time for another blood sugar check, honey.” 

Adam just holds out a bruised hand.

“Oh, Adam,” Calla says, as Claire pricks an already bruised finger and gets a reading. “You can rest, sweetheart. You should get some rest.” 

“547,” Claire says, and Adam just nods. “We’re starting to slowly come down. Do you need anything while I’m here, bud?” 

“Water,” Adam tries, like he always has. He sees his moms looking around for a cup, so they must not know. 

“Sorry. You’re still NPO. I can get you a mouth swab, again, if you think it’ll help,” Claire says, offers Adam a sad smile. 

“Those don’t help. ‘M thirsty, and my mouth tastes awful,” Adam mumbles out, as Calla smooths his hair back from his forehead. 

“Maybe we can get you some water to rinse your mouth with, if you promise not to swallow,” Claire says. “You have to promise, though. And maybe some sugar-free life savers.”

“Why can’t he have any water?” Blue asks, drawing her knees to her chest.

“He’s really dehydrated,” Claire explains, “and because his sugar is still so high it’s very likely it wouldn’t stay down. Vomiting would further aggravate his electrolyte imbalances, and we want to quantitatively rehydrate him through the IV so we know exactly how much is going in and out.” 

“There’s a tube up my dick,” Adam adds, his eyes half open as Calla continues carding through his hair. “Don’t even know if I’m peeing. I could be peeing right now.” 

“This is why I didn’t want a boy,” Blue says, her voice soft until it cracks. She is terrified—there’s so much going on and the moms don’t even know half of it but Adam is right in front of her and he is so, so sick. 

“We also don’t want him up and moving—he should be laying down until he’s more hydrated,” Claire says. “It’ll just feel better for him, but absolutely no getting in and out of bed.” 

“Matt’s already made that one clear,” Adam tries to say helpfully. “He took my phone, though not ‘cause I tried to get up.” 

“Listen to what they’re saying, honey,” Maura says. “You’re really, really sick, so you need to stay in bed, okay?”

Adam just nods. He knows now that trying to get up just makes everything feel worse and freaks everyone out, so he’s not going to try it again. 

“Why does Matt have your phone?” That’s Calla. Adam rolls his head over to look at Blue, and then he remembers what the fuck he did. 

Oh, _fuck_. 

“Nothin,” Adam says, as Claire adjusts something in his medicine that makes him feel more tired again. “Just fixed the problem.” 

And then Adam’s asleep. 

“What did he fix?” Calla’s voice shakes, as she sits down at his side. “What happened?” 

Blue just shows Calla the screenshots of Adam’s twenty-first century Reynold’s pamphlet. 

“Henry already deleted it,” Blue says, “but it was up for almost an hour and a half. He must have tweeted while we were in the air.” 

“Oh,” is all Calla says at first, before she sighs. “I’m guessing Henry is somewhere around here?” 

“He’s just down the hall,” Maura says. “I can get him in here, if you want?” 

“Yeah. I don’t really know the media reaction, but if it’s not all of them backing the fuck off, I’m not going to deal with it,” Calla says. “I’m not leaving him. Not like this.” 

“I know, honey, I know,” Maura says, wraps her arms around Calla. “We’re here now, and he’s where he needs to be. The rest will work itself out.” 

Henry knocks on the door. 

“Hi, guys,” Henry says. “How’s he doing?” 

“He’s okay,” Calla manages. “He’s very sick, but…” 

Henry just nods. 

“I know it’s not a good time,” he starts, sits down on the arm of the couch. “But we should talk. I don’t know if you’ve seen by now…” 

“I’ve seen,” Calla says. “Henry, if it’s not something that can be dealt with here, I’m not doing it. I’m not leaving him.” 

“I know,” Henry says. “There are a few pieces of good news in this. The whole email scandal is gone, because people have done a quick google search and verified that Adam was right on the Medicaid emails, and if anything, the country likes you more for running out of the debate to be with Adam right now than if you had stayed.” Henry takes a breath, and sees Calla’s angry face about to emerge. “I know that’s not how you made your choice, but the Republican nominee has an awful twitter thread bashing you about leaving the debate that’s just been deleted, and he looks like an ass.”

Calla smiles a little at that. He is an ass, so him making it obvious is nothing but helpful to her. 

“What do you want me to do here?” Calla asks. “I’m not leaving this hospital.” 

“All of the major news networks are already outside,” Henry says. “Secret Service and the hospital are okay with a brief press conference outside. Jon has a statement, you answer five questions, and that’s it.”

“Okay,” Calla says. “Set it up, email the statement, and I’ll go out there when it’s time.” She is not fixing her hair, she is not fixing her makeup, she is not fixing her anything. The public is going to see her as presidential as she is when she is nothing but a terrified mom. 

“Okay. Please let me know what else I can do—your campaign and senate office are all under control, and I told people to not email or call unless it was an absolute emergency. I can field all those calls first though,” Henry says, his voice going fast. 

“Thank you, Henry.”

:: ::

There’s a videographer following Calla down the hall. She doesn’t know it, and Henry has only allowed it on the condition that she doesn’t know about it. It’s just such a powerful moment that it needs to be captured, even if it is never used.

She stands in front of the flashing lights and cameras, remains calm as she reads the statement her speechwriter has prepared, until her voice starts to crack. It’s still too raw, and she doesn’t want to be here. She wants to be sitting there, making sure he has everything he needs and that he’s being helped every way that he needs. 

“Are there questions? We’re taking a maximum of five,” Henry says, when it’s over. “Yes, Anna?”

“How’s he doing? Is he okay?” Anna asks, offers Calla a warm smile. 

Every single question is like that—easy, compassionate, and centered around how her family is. It’s no secret that their family has had some kind of relationship with the press—they pry too hard into things that don’t concern them, and scrutinize harder than they have any right to just because they don’t fit the model of a typical family, but they’ve been there the whole way through this process, have taken some of Calla’s favorite pictures of Adam and Blue and Maura. She knows these people, has met some of their kids, and now they are being compassionate in turn. 

“Thank you all for sticking around. I’m going to go back to my son now,” Calla says, allows her guard to close in like they need to do and walk her back up to the ICU. 

She holds Adam’s hand, gives him breath mints when all he wants is water. 

They’ve got a long road ahead, to get him stable, to November. She doesn’t really care what the consequences of her taking a few weeks off on events, nor does she particularly care. If the press can give her space, so can the pundits. 

His sugar is under 500 by morning. It feels like Calla can finally breathe again. 

“You should get some sleep,” Maura says, gestures to the space next to her on the couch. “I’ll keep an eye on him.” 

“No,” Calla says. She can’t sleep, because she can’t stop thinking about how they should have stopped this sooner. She should have pushed harder to see a GI, because they would have known that the issue wasn’t allergies or anything, and she should never have let him stay in DC alone. She should never have gone to Chicago. 

“You can’t do anything more than what we’re doing. The nurses are taking care of him, babe,” Maura says, rubs Calla’s back as she sits down next to her. “You need some sleep you haven’t slept this week.”

“This is all my fault,” Calla says, puts her head in her hands. “Not just this, but the emails… everything.”

“Well, that’s what he’s been saying, and you can’t both be right,” Maura says, and when Calla doesn’t even smile a little bit, Maura squeezes her thigh gently. “It’s not your fault. And it doesn’t matter what we could’ve done or what we could’ve prevented him doing—it happened and we need to focus on supporting him through this.” 

Calla leans her head on Maura’s shoulder, lets her massage her scalp and knead at the base of her neck a little. 

“We’ll get him through this,” Calla says, and it is a promise. Calla Sargent-Johnson does not make empty promises. 

Maura just kisses Calla’s forehead, lays her head in her own lap and tries to soothe her to sleep.

Calla and Adam are so, so similar that it hurts at times like these. They both stay up way too late and are way too stubborn for their own good and take on way more than their share of Atlas’s weight. They’re both blaming themselves for something neither of them could have fixed or prevented, and Maura just wants to hold them both until they understand that no matter what it feels like now, it’s going to get better. 

The sun is rising. It’s a new day. It has to be enough.

:: ::

“Are you all ready to go?” Henry asks, lint rolls Adam’s suit jacket for the hundredth time. “Sugar’s okay? You don’t need a snack?”

It’s been a rough few months—he’s been essentially glued to a mom or a babysitter while they navigate the new sea of sugar checks, programming his insulin pump, using his continuous glucose monitor. But it’s finally July, and that means his mom is finally making history. She’s about to officially become the first female nominee of any major political party, the first latina woman, the first gay person. 

He’s so fucking proud.

Henry’s kept it a secret who gets to introduce Calla at the DNC, because it’s something he, Jon, and Adam have been working on during Adam’s forced vacation. They’d been thinking about the best person to give that final introduction, but no Washington name or former colleague was working right. Adam had wandered into the conference room looking for some sugar, and Henry had just known. 

Adam meets Calla’s eyes from across the stage, gives her a little wave and ignores her confused face as he walks out to the biggest crowd he’s ever seen in his life. 

“It’s no big secret that at the beginning of my mom’s presidential bid, she wasn’t my top choice,” Adam starts, and so do the pictures and videos. 

There’s pictures of Adam coloring in Calla’s lap on the house floor, while she debates a bill, pictures of Blue and Maura and Adam at various Fourth of July and Washington events, as he talks about how she’s not just the best mom ever, but how she has devoted her career to fight for healthcare and equal opportunity not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because of times that they’ve had to fight with Medicaid and times where people didn’t accept their family. 

When he gets to the end, it’s the video of Calla walking out to give that address outside of Children’s National. 

“It is my great honor to introduce the future president of the United States, and my mom, Calla Sargent-Johnson.” 

There’s balloons and streamers and confetti, but all that matters to Adam is the smile on Calla’s face as she hugs him. 

Despite everything going to shit, she’s made it. And she’ll make it in November, too. 

And she does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please let me know what you think!!!
> 
> calla wins presidency and the next part will pick up with adam as an adult in college and he will meet ronan and it will be a Time™
> 
> please leave a comment here or @thoseunheard on tumblr i love reading all of them!

**Author's Note:**

> pls let me know what you think! the next chapter ... is nothing like this at all but let me know what you think is coming! rant here or @ thoseunheard on tumblr comments seriously make my day
> 
> (also I have like three sentences written of it so i cannot promise that the next chapter will be up swiftly but i'm really vibing with the au so maybe two weeks?)


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